Meet the Community: Places to Get PowerShell Answers

Throughout August I'll highlight another one of the best resources the PowerShell community has to offer. Take some time this summer to expand your horizons, learn a new PowerShell technique, and further your mastery of the shell! This series will be entitled "Meet the Community," and I encourage you to get involved. It's a great way to learn in bite-sized chunks, get un-stuck, and make new connections in the broader world of PowerShell.

Getting stuck sucks. What sucks even more is spending days on Google (or Bing, depending on your loyalties) trying to get un-stuck. Me, I'm a big fan of just asking for help... and here are some of my favorite ways to do it. None of these sites are owned or run by me, although I do try to participate in them when I have time. What you'll find, though, is a group of dedicated, helpful folks who are more than willing to help you get un-stuck when you need a hand.

PowerShell.com's "Ask the Experts" forums are unique in that each one is dedicated to a specific topical area (Exchange, SharePoint, etc), and each one is moderated by an expert in that topic.

I originally founded ScriptingAnswers.com, and it's now owned and operated by SAPIEN Technologies. This is still an active forum with helpful users who try to help you out as much as they can.

Both StackOverflow.com and ServerFault.com (both part of the StackExchange network) are great technology Q&A sites. Be sure to tag questions with "PowerShell," and note that StackOverflow is more dev-centric, while ServerFault is more admin-focused.

PowerGUI.org not only supports the PowerGUI product, but also has great forums for getting help on a number of PowerShell-related topics.

On a related note, also check out PoshCode.org, an online repository (pretty much "the" repository) for script examples. Also, the #powershell channel on FreeNode IRC is a popular place to get real-time answers. You'll find several PowerShell MVPs in more or less continual contact there.